The Crawstep
by Teninshigen
Summary: "Jest stick oot yer leg an' feel fae the step - it's all in the ankle, ye ken?" - A resting ground for various random ideas floating around in my head. Some may be incomplete, some may be used again later, and some just need to be out of my head so I can THINK.
1. Define 'Unlimited'

Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg was, all things considered, quite the bastard.

He was other things of course – he was a troll, a several-hundred-year-old not-quite-man, the user of the Second Magic Kaleidoscope, the inventor of the Jeweled Sword and the Kaleidosticks, and the man who single-handedly beat back TYPE-MOON. And the literal moon to boot.

But when you got down to it, all feats of godlike power and prankmastery notwithstanding, he could be a real bastard.

So, when he happened to take a stroll through an alternate reality one day, looking for something (read: literally almost anything) to do with his copious (read: very nearly infinite) amounts of spare time, and happened to walk into the middle of a Holy Grail War, the people present should have taken the time to do a few things.

The first of these was to stop momentarily and identify the newcomer.

The second of these was to pale considerably, drop everything they were doing, and get the hell out of dodge. Other options were, of course, available – but only if they didn't conflict with the third thing they should do. Or rather, should not do.

Namely piss him off.

Because as Gilgamesh, ancient King of Heroes, Heroic Spirit, owner of the Gate of Babylon and just about every Noble Phantasm to ever exist (let alone make an appearance in mythology) was about to discover, an interdimensional vampiric wielder of True Magic with a grudge is not the kind of thing you want to meet in a dark alley.

Or at all, really.

* * *

Shirou Emiya was beginning to wonder why he ever bothered to get out of bed.

Of course, that was in the back of his head – most of his focus right now was on trying to move the battered remains of his body into the space between Rin Tohsaka and the golden bastard currently moving toward her.

Rin. Sarcastic, cold, sadistic, caring, incredible Rin, without whom he would be dead dozens of times over at this point. Rin who was standing right there, right in front of the single most powerful entity the Sword Incarnation had ever seen or fought, without him.

His torn limbs and bleeding torso writhed in a gruesome parody of motion as he tried to worm his way to the two, to interpose himself between them, to keep her safe-

But he was too slow.

The adrenaline in his veins heightened his perceptions, showing him in agonisingly slow, painfully clear detail, the gold-plated hand currently descending towards his fellow magus' head. He knew the strength of a Heroic Spirit – had fought against it in person, had been on the receiving end of beatings literally beyond human comprehension – and he knew what would happen if that blow landed.

That knowledge just made what was about to happen hurt even more, and he tried to express that in sound...

But before he could, there was someone beside him, and his focus was drawn to the figure.

It was as if he couldn't focus on anything else; like the man beside him (no, not a man, can't be a man, can't be human) had such a weight of presence that reality folded like fabric around him, created a divot, a place where all things funnelled towards him.

He was tall – not inhumanly so, but impressively nonetheless. His shoulders were wide and strong, despite the years on his face and the steel-grey of his hair and beard. His features were angular and solid, as if hewn from granite, and his eyes were the red of blood.

Powerful, red-eyed, old figure apparently completely unaffected by their age. Oh, and carried themselves like an aristocrat. There was only one possibility in Shirou's mind. He might have been largely uneducated as to matters in the Moonlit World, but his father, Kiritsugu Emiya, the Magus Killer, had told him about some of the things most likely to kill him.

And Dead Apostles, specifically Dead Apostle Ancestors, (rather like the one he suspected was standing right beside him looking rather stone-faced) were right at the top of that considerable list.

"Child." His voice was baritone, rich, and carried an air of command that was unmistakeable. There was also a familiar chord – one that Shirou was well used to. Anger. This man – well, this thing in a man's shape – was very, very angry.

The Faker thanked all that was holy and sharp-edged that said anger wasn't directed at him. Yet.

"Do you want to stop him?" It was a simple question. A question, the answer to which was utterly obvious even without knowing the nature of Shirou Emiya.

The nature of a distorted human – a person whose sense of self had burned away at the age of five in an unending, torturous journey through flaming death and countless screams. The nature of someone who lived only for others, who would not hesitate to sacrifice all that they were, or ever had been, or ever could be, for the sake of a complete stranger.

The nature of Sword in a human form, a creature of Steel, a weapon that existed only for the purpose of being wielded in the pursuit of Justice.

Even without knowing all that, the conviction, the pleading, the need in those molten-gold eyes would have communicated to any being of any intelligence that the answer to that question was...

"Y..es..." Speaking with punctured lungs and very little blood was generally not considered to be within the realms of human ability...but then again, very little that Shirou Emiya ever accomplished could claim to be contained by those particular limitations.

Zelretch's dark shoulder-cape rustled slightly as he reached to his hip, where a blade seemingly composed of every gem imaginable fused together into one impossible weapon contrasted sharply with his dark suit, the kind of thing you could only pay for with the amount of money normally allocated to feeding families of four for several centuries.

"In that case, young Sword..." The vampire knelt down, took the mangled remains of Shirou's right hand in his own, and opened the fingers. "I give you the strength to grant your own wish."

And then he placed the hilt of his Jeweled Sword, the weapon of the Wizard Marshal, considered just about the ultimate Mystic Code known to the Clocktower Association, and one of the only ways to wield the Second Magic, into the hand of a man who was a sword himself – of a man whose sole ability was to know everything about a weapon at first glance, and reproduce it almost perfectly.

The fingers closed around the shining material...

And then the universe...twitched.

* * *

At this point, something fundamental must be understood about the nature of the Multiverse, the Kaleidoscope, Infinity and Shirou Emiya.

The first thing ties together with the third – and can be summarised in a simple fact:

The Multiverse is Infinite.

Only four words...but they mean something almost incomprehensible to the human mind. This is because Infinity is more than a word, more than a number, more than a construct – it is a concept. And when it comes to Thaumaturgy, concepts carry a lot of weight.

A concept can create stopping power equivalent to seven fortress walls.

A concept can reverse causality.

A concept can play havoc with time, space, life, death and everything in between, because to a concept, things like 'physical', 'metaphysical', 'spiritual' and 'magical' mean absolutely nothing. It exists – therefore, concepts can be applied to it.

And there are few concepts with the same power as Infinity.

With that established, something must be noted about the Second True Magic, as discovered and utilised by the Old Man of the Jewels, Zelretch himself. It is, fundamentally, the power to reach across dimensions and into parallel realities. That is the core of the power, but it is in its application that diversity begins to show.

Perhaps its most basic power is to step across the barriers between worlds, to visit a reality where the differences may be as minor as a grain of sand on a beach not being in the same place, to a person never having been born, to life never having evolved, to the big bang never having occurred. A more advanced power is to reach out to those realities and draw strength from them, usually in the form of Mana. The power generated by the planet itself, generally mixed with the energy of living beings (called Od) to create Prana, the source of power for Thaumaturgy, for a wielder of the Second Magic it is possible to draw this energy from sources beyond one world. Other worlds may have far more or far less power, but nonetheless, a boost can be acquired in this manner.

The most advanced ability, however, is the ability to draw on more than simple Mana. The ability to draw on alternate versions of one's self instead, to reach out across time, space and reality to parallel versions of the wielder to borrow their strengths, their experiences and, in some cases, their forms and possessions.

For one who masters this ability, or who has a focus which can aid them in doing so, 'diversification' is not a strong enough descriptor for the results. And this ties back into what was just covered – the simple, four-word fact:

The Multiverse is Infinite.

Now, the reasons why Infinity is such a powerful concept.

'To be infinite' means 'to be without limit'. It has other meanings too, but this one is currently the most appropriate for the context. Essentially, by the nature of the Multiverse, there is a world for every possible variation that could occur within the infinitely-sized universe.

That's one infinity.

Then there's all the possible combinations of those changes that could create a new world.

That's another infinity.

So, are there two infinities' worth of worlds? No. Because: The Multiverse is Infinite. This is a fact – it isn't doubly infinite or somesuch, it is Infinite.

And the distinction is important, because to be Infinite means that there is no limit. There is not just one world where a single grain of sand was shifted, there are infinite worlds where that fact is true, and there is an infinity for every change and an infinity for every combination of changes.

What this means, basically, is that when a user of the Second Magic taps into the power of all their alternates at once – as Zelretch is purported to have done at one point – the power they should gain is, also, Infinite.

Since Zelretch's original reality (probably) and the Old Man himself (his physical form at least – the jury was still out on his mind) still exist, it is safe to assume he did not release an infinite amount of energy when dealing with Crimson Moon Brunestud. After all, the complete cessation of reality is something that's rather hard to miss, and not the kind of thing even a Dead Apostle Ancestor can survive.

So the conclusion which must be drawn is that the Wizard Marshal didn't access every single one of his counterparts' power, and the reason can only be hypothesised.

The most common idea, however, is that he simply couldn't process the concept of 'Infinity'.

His mind, still rooted in humanity, was unable to conceive of Infinity in its purest form, and instead it accessed as many alternates as it possibly could. Obviously that was enough to accomplish the task...but at the same time, it could be so much more.

But of course, to make full use of the Second Magic's potential, one would therefore require the ability to process the concept of 'Infinity' – alongside knowledge of the Magic itself. But no human could possibly do that, since it's a concept so alien that it would burn their soul to ashes.

However, Shirou Emiya is not exactly human.

Stripped of memory and feeling during the fire of his fifth year. Raised by a man who once wished to be an Ally of Justice, who taught him basic Thaumaturgy. An existence so fundamentally twisted, his perception of the world was no longer human – giving him an ability thought to exist only in demons and Dead Apostle Ancestors.

A Reality Marble. A manifestation of the soul, a thaumaturgy bordering on True Magic which gifts the user unique abilities and the power to temporarily overwrite the world around them and replace it with their own.

And for Shirou Emiya, Sword Incarnation and living host of the legendary scabbard Avalon, that power took the form of Unlimited Blade Works.

A world which, at a glance from its owner, recorded everything about a weapon – from its forging to its history, everything about it became a blueprint that the magus could use in Tracing – a magecraft of his own devising – to recreate them in near-perfect detail.

And more importantly...an Infinite world.

So in summary – a Magic capable of summoning Infinite power, placed in the hands of one of the only (if not the only) existences capable of processing the concept of 'Infinity'...in the form of a sword. A form which that particular existence happened to be very compatible with.

Really, Zelretch should have seen it coming.

* * *

Everything in that particular reality – from the Types, to every sentient thing out there, to Gaia and Alaya themselves, knew when Shirou Emiya's fingers closed around that hilt.

Desperately trying to draw on power to take action, the magus' broken mind performed the supposedly impossible task of processing 'Infinity' – and then reached for all the power it could possibly detect and grab hold of.

Namely, Infinite power.

His physical form should, in all reality, have instantly been reduced to literal nothingness – his matter becoming energy, and the energy fading away into the cessation of being that was the universe before the Big Bang. Along with his host reality, as a matter of fact.

That wasn't quite what happened. Instead, Avalon, a conceptual item in and of itself, drew on that power to accomplish its mission – to keep its wielder alive. So it held together the existence of Shirou Emiya, even when it tried to come apart at a level beyond quarks and other sub-fundamental particles, using the same energy which was trying to tear him to pieces.

Unstoppable force and immovable object collided. The result? Stalemate.

Infinity cannot overcome Infinity – that is a simple fact of nature. And as a result, several things happened very, very quickly.

In less time than it takes for a photon to cross the distance of a quark's radius in empty space, Shirou Emiya's body had returned to the peak of health.

In barely more time than that, his perceptions – now so far beyond human, with his body effectively becoming living Prana – took in the arrogant Golden King about to kill someone very dear to him. Someone he had sworn to protect, even if it cost him his life.

And he acted.

"TRACE...ON!" The aria was spoken. The self hypnosis was completed. A mind which had never really been human, and which had now ascended to a level where its twisted nature was supported by an equally twisted foundation, received the instructions...

And then it carried them out.

If this had been the Shirou Emiya of five minutes beforehand, then the results of the spell would have been swords raining from the sky around Gilgamesh, falling down around him in a circle. He would have been forced to either retrieve his arm and dodge, or lose the limb.

This was not, however, the Shirou Emiya of five minutes ago. This was a being beyond any TYPE, beyond any limiter or control. This was, by most definitions, a God – and it was a God with a unique magecraft, a world which stored every weapon they had ever seen, and an intimate connection to every version of himself to ever exist.

It was safe to say that Unlimited Blade Works had a few new additions.

So when Shirou sent the mental command 'Trap him with swords', his magic responded. There was no flaring of circuits – not when his entire form conducted Prana with more effectiveness than any Magic Circuit, even the legendary Blue Blood Noble Magic Circuits of the Barthomelloi family.

Instead, Unlimited Blade Works did what was requested of it – and with great aplomb, too.

One moment there was Gilgamesh, arm moving to decapitate the Tohsaka heiress. The next, there was a cube of...just about everything.

From daggers and swords, to polearms and whips, to bows and axes, just about every type of pre-gunpowder weapon imaginable was present in that cube. Some were ordinary, some were Mystic Codes, some were Holy, some Demonic, some elemental, and some of them were Noble Phantasms, Broken Phantasms or weapons of the Gods.

The only thing they all had in common was that, somewhere in the densely-packed cube of deadly armaments, they contained what had once been a powerful and arrogant Heroic Spirit.

Now...there just wasn't. Nothing could exist within that cube of death, and so nothing did.

The King of Heroes ceased to exist in a time so small, no human could ever quantify it.

* * *

Author's Note

I finally got around to posting this just as a place for me to put random ideas. It probably won't get that much attention, but I felt like I might as well do it. Who knows, maybe it'll give someone else ideas...

Or maybe I've just re-read Dogbertcarroll's Fragments series too often...


	2. Magpie Syndrome

_'Remind me again why we're doing this?'_

Piccolo sighed, straightening to his rather impressive full height as he relinquished his grip on a large, orange sphere containing several red stars that always appeared two dimensional, no matter how much the crystalline orb was twisted. It and five others like it were all piled together in this wasteland, and he was only waiting on his partner in crime to retrieve the seventh.

"We're doing this, Nell, because Gohan asked us to." Of course, he'd tried to argue – but, unfortunately, he never _had_ learned how to say not to the kid. He just wished that the tyke would use those damn puppy dog eyes for good – instead of, say...

"Hiya best buddy! You got the...uh...fifth, right?"

Helping _him._

"For the last time, Goku," he growled, turning around and crossing his arms as he glared at the saiyan currently toting the seventh and final Dragon Ball. "I am _not_ your 'best buddy'. I'm doing this because Gohan asked me – _not_ because we're friends."

He didn't bother correcting the man-child on the number of the artifacts they'd already gathered; the fact that he'd only been one digit off was basically a miracle.

"Aw, come on Piccolo!" The Goku whined, carting the crystal in his arms to the pile. "Of course we're friends! I mean we fought Raditz together..."

 _'You blew a hole in him through his brother, a member of a_ very _endangered species...'_

"Then we fought on Namek together..."

 _'That walking cue-ball brought us back to life, then teleported us against our will to a dying planet just in time for you to end up with another man inside you...'_

"And we even learned to drive cars together!"

 _'...He's got you there.'_

"Shut up Nell!" The Namekian barked on reflex, smacking one clawed, green hand to his own forehead as if to try and slap the other consciousness.

 _ **'You know, Piccolo, you're only hurting yourself.'**_

Another growl from the slug-man. "Dammit old man, I've got enough of a headache right now! Why can't you just find some corner in my head and turn to dust already?"

There was a sound like wood clacking together, as the spirit of the elder Namekian once referred to by Earth-dwellers as 'Kami' sniffed. _**'Maybe when I've finished this game of pool. Come now Nell, it's your turn.'**_

 _'Right, right. Well, have fun with your friend, buddy!'_

Piccolo very nearly bit his tongue to keep from launching into another verbal tirade. His patience was at an end, and standing around in the high-noon sun, in a sandy wasteland, in weighted clothing with only an idiot and two consciousnesses he couldn't stand but couldn't do anything about for company was _not_ helping him.

As the Dragon Balls began to pulse white, flashing brighter and brighter, a thought occured to the tired Namekian. "Goku, why are we summoning the Dragon in the first place?" He paused. "Did Krillin die again?" Goku shook his head. "Vegeta?" Another shake. "Yamcha?"

The saiyan paused for a moment. "I dunno, actually. I haven't seen him in a while; you think he fell down a well somewhere?"

Piccolo _twitched_. "I might not exactly have much faith in him, but not even I think he's _that_ much of a little bitch." _Though Vegeta would probably disagree._

"Meh." Goku shrugged, even as stormclouds gathered and a massive burst of light faded away to reveal the colossal, green, scaled form of Shenron, the Eternal Dragon.

Neither man batted an eye; they'd done this a _lot_ in the past few years.

 **"I am the Etern-"** The voice like mountains falling down faltered, before red eyes glared down on the two figures. **"Oh for Christ's sake, it's you two _again?_ " **A sigh like a hurricane rushed from the being's mouth, before it spoke up again. **"Fine. Now, which of your idiot friends am I fetching from Yami _this_ time?"**

Goku burst into laughter. Piccolo, personally, didn't see what was so funny; in fact, he was rather disturbed by the fact that literally everyone they knew had either died or come as close as made no difference at some point or another. _We seriously need therapy._

 _'And you didn't think of this for_ how _long after getting two voices in your head?'_

"SHUT UP NELL!" Another reflexive yell went out, but neither the Dragon nor Goku looked. They'd been getting used to that from the Namekian.

"Dragon!" Goku declared, "I have a question for you!"

One massive eyebrow rose. This was certainly new.

"You're green, right?"

Piccolo _froze_. Inside his mind, the spirits of two other deceased Namekians did likewise, the elder dropping his pool cue. _He wouldn't..._ They all thought in sync.

The Dragon nodded slowly, a bit unsure where this was going. Was he going to be asked to cure colour blindness?

"And you're a lizard, so you must have come out of an egg, right?"

Idly, Piccolo thought that he must have picked that up from Chichi at some point, since there wasn't enough room in the saiyan's brain for trivia unrelated to fighting. Most of his brain, however, was starting to shake violently as his body followed suit, the driving consciousness in his mind ignoring the two voices trying to calm him down.

 **"As a matter of fact, the Master _did_ hatch me from an egg..." ** The Dragon replied, thinking back to the moment when he became conscious...and was promptly forced into abject obedience when his first sight was an endless, _endless_ void...

He shook himself. Some things, not even magically immortal, mountain-sized wish granting dragons were equipped to deal with.

Finally, Goku got to the point.

"Are...you a yoshi?"

 _'...He said it.'_ / _ **'...He said it.'**_

Something rather important, but rather frayed, _snapped_ in Piccolo. "...I'm done." He muttered, and Goku turned to look at him inquisitively.

"What was that best buddy?"

"I'm done." Piccolo responded, sounding surprisingly calm. "I am completely, one hundred percent, _with all of my being,_ _DONE._ "

He began stalking slowly towards a seemingly oblivious Goku. "I have been fighting you or beside you for _years_. I've been shot through the chest, I have lost several arms, I have been drowned multiple times, every inch of my body has been beaten purple, every bone in my body has been snapped, fractured or turned to dust, and I've been killed more times than should even be possible! I'm running out of words for done I am with you! Sometimes, I wish, I really do wish, that I never had to see you again!"

The Namekian stopped shouting then, instead putting his hands on his knees and panting as he tried to calm down.

'… _Might have wanted to phrase that a little differently, buddy.'_

Piccolo blinked several times. Then, the haze of anger lifted, and he turned around slowly with dawning horror, to find two glowing red eyes that he would _swear_ were laughing at him. **"Your wish…"**

"No, no, no, no, no! Wait, it was a turn of phrase, I wasn't actually-!" The Namekian started to say, backing away from the dragon and raising his hands defensively as if they'd actually do anything.

" **Has been granted."**

There was a moment of silence, in which Piccolo had an instant to say his final words in that universe.

"…Shut up, Nell."

Then there was a rather anti-climactic 'pop' sound, and Piccolo vanished into thin air.

About a metre away from him, Son Goku frowned. "Hey, that's my thing!"

* * *

… _Alright, much as I hate to do this…anyone else alive in here?_

' _Alive and kicking, buddy.'_

' _ **My consciousness remains active.'**_

… _I suppose it was too much to hope for. So, any, idea what I'm going to see when I open my eyes?_

' _ **There appears to be an incredibly low average power level for this universe; the highest active power I can detect is in rather close proximity, but it still falls heavily short compared to us. Indeed, I believe it would actually fall short compared to anyone of note from home.'**_

 _Even Yamcha?_

'… _ **Anyone of note.'**_

"Should've seen that one coming." The Namekian grumbled, before he opened his eyes and cast his gaze around. He was…in a forest. It was a decent forest, as forests went, but it still wasn't exactly the most awe-inspiring first sight of this new place…

Wait.

"Hey, old man, did you say 'universe?"

' _ **Hm? Oh, yes. I can't sense Namek, any of the intervening systems, Earth itself, or even the governing spirits such as Yama, Shenron, King Kai or Popo. We appear to be, in fact, in an entirely different reality.'**_

The green man stood entirely motionless for a long moment. Then, he asked quietly, "So you mean…Goku, Vegeta, Krillin and the others…?"

' _ **We will likely never see them again. Indeed, as your wish included the condition "never", they will likely be unable to retrieve us with the Dragon Balls…and I can sense no equivalent anywhere in this universe. We are, for all intents and purposes, stranded alone here.'**_

There was dead silence for a moment. Then, a sound began to ring out among the trees. Quiet at first, it got louder and louder with time, until Piccolo's laughter started scaring local wildlife from its nests and burrows. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! No more idiot monkeys, no more planet-sized egos, no more of that cue-ball complaining about everyone ripping off his attack! _I'M FREE!_ "

His laughter kept on going for a while, until he finally calmed down and closed his eyes again. "Right then, so, just do a quick sensory sweep of the planet to see what the neighbours are like, and then…"

A frown furrowed the slug-man's brow. "What the Popo? Old man, you said there was life here…I'm not sensing anything apart from that one spark a few miles away."

' _ **I'm not surprised, honestly. You've become so used to following battles between titans from a distance, you automatically scan for a certain level of power which you will not find here. You must lower your threshold, Piccolo.'**_

Grunting, the Namekian did as his elder had advised, then froze in place once again. "Holy black on a Popo…" He murmured, "I'm on an entire _planet_ of Yamchas."

Shaking himself, the alien oriented himself in the direction of the only power level worth acknowledging on the face of this planet. "Well, might as well go see what's up…"

* * *

When he reached the spot which had, until moments before, been radiating the most energy of anything on the planet, Piccolo found two human corpses, an absolutely wrecked forest, and a baby screaming in a stone cradle. He stared for a moment, between the child and the two adults, one man and one woman. He had the woman's facial structure, and the man's hair and eyes.

' _ **Extraordinary…'**_ Kami's voice murmured, _**'It appears that the being which was the source of that energy signature has been sealed within this child.'**_

"This child." Piccolo deadpanned. "The one whose parents just died?"

' _ **It appears so.'**_

There was a long silence as the three Namekians in one tried to decide on a course of action, before the one whose body it was let out a long sigh. "Well…it's not like it's the first time we've looked after a kid with giant monster tendencies…"

' _Speak for yourself, buddy.'_

"Shut up Nell." He muttered, looking down at the bawling child. "Kid. Hey, kid. _Hey kid!_ "

The baby abruptly stopped crying, looking up at the relatively massive form of the green slug-man. "That's better," the alien told him. "Now, you got a choice to make."

' _ **You are aware that he cannot understand you?'**_

' _It's not kidnapping if you have their consent, old man.'_

Piccolo's eyebrow would have twitched, if he had any. As it was, he simply ignored the voices in his head, as he usually tried to do. Besides, Gohan didn't count as kidnapping – it had been an intervention.

"You can either come with me," he indicated his own chest with a thumb, " _or_ you can stay here, with all the really angry people coming this way."

The child looked up at him with crystalline blue eyes, then abruptly started grinning, reaching out podgy arms and gurgling. Deciding that this was probably a 'yes', the Namekian reached into the cradle, and gently hoisted the small baby alongside his orange blankets. As he did so, he noticed several characters sewn into the blankets. "Naruto Uzumaki, huh?" He grunted, looking down at the pink thing now burrowing into his chest happily. "Well, at least I don't have to name you."

And with that, the two floated into the air and disappeared, just barely avoiding a massive crowd of ninja, led by one Hiruzen Sarutobi, searching for their Hokage.

Thus began the mystery of the missing Jinchuuriki, one which would consume endless hours of Konohagakure's shinobi force's time, spawn a nations-wide man hunt, and result in some rather extreme branching of the timeline.

Or, as Piccolo saw it, the search for yet another new place to live. _Damn. And I'd_ just _got started on that new castle, too._

* * *

 **Five Years Later, Sunagakure**

"Well, Naruto?" Piccolo grunted, looking out over the domed rooftops and sand-flooded streets of the Village Hidden in the Sand. "This the place?"

Hovering beside him under his own power, five-year-old Naruto Uzumaki hummed an affirmative. "Yup! Furball definitely said that his asshole brother was here, and his container was just like me."

The Namekian grunted again. He had to agree; there _was_ another feeling kind of like Naruto's running around here, though he had to strain to sense it. It was almost funny – five years of adjusting, and he was _still_ having trouble getting his power-sensing abilities to a low enough threshold to pick out one person from another.

He blamed Goku.

' _You blame Goku for everything, partner.'_

That was largely because almost everything that had ever gone wrong for him was Goku's fault in some way, shape or form.

Though, really, he didn't have anyone to blame for teaching Naruto about using Ki but himself. The kid was a natural at it; perhaps not so much as the saiyans had been, but he definitely had the right instincts. He'd been flying for half a year at this point, and talking for two years before that. Something about the fox in his gut seemed to have upped his rate of maturation – and it was a damn good thing too, because Piccolo had gotten real tired real fast of finding places to get milk for the kid.

On the bright side, it was nice having someone to talk to in the real world, even if he needed to teach his new conversation partner anything that they were going to speak about beforehand. Naruto seemed to enjoy it, too – he was always up for learning new things.

Apparently, the Fox, which they referred to as 'Furball' due to his reluctance to part with his real name, had been woken up from his sleep early by his container's burgeoning abilities, and had started talking with him on occasion.

Between him and Piccolo, they knew that someone with red eyes and a mask had turned the Kyuubi loose on that village where he'd found Naruto, which had resulted in the boy's parents sacrificing themselves to save it and seal the fox away.

The blond had been a bit upset about that, but Piccolo wasn't one for subtlety. The blond had gotten over it remarkably quickly, probably due to his young age and lack of any prior knowledge about his mother and father. Then, he decided to kill the asshole who had killed his parents.

The Namekian could relate to that goal, so he threw more effort into his training.

Naruto was further along now than Gohan had been at his age, sans the whole rage-fuelled-bursts-of-overpowering-strength thing, and at this point Piccolo had decided he would need sparring partners. He'd do it himself, but frankly, holding himself back to that level was a whole lot of work and he didn't think his fighting style would work for Naruto. After all, not many races made allowances for the ability to spontaneously regenerate limbs in the middle of a martial arts battle.

So, the kid needed someone his age and roughly his level to fight and improve himself alongside. Piccolo himself had figured out that he could, if he meditated, duke it out with Nell, Kami or both in his own mind, while he just kept exercising in the real world to stay in shape.

He'd practiced his Ki abilities, too – once per month, Kami helped him target a planet outside the current system, and he fired off a shot in its direction.

On a related note, there were now a total of sixty less celestial bodies in that corner of the universe.

So, they'd left the flattened mountain-top which had served as their home for the past five years, and gone in search of someone for the blond to practice with…to Kumogakure's rather expressive sigh of collective relief, as the 'Emerald Demon' and its apprentice had finally stopped raiding their supplies of water, ramen and training weights.

Well, with the exception of the current Raikage Ay, and his brother Killer B – both of whom were somewhat sad to see their favourite sparring partner go. Even if 'sparring' was probably pushing it, seeing as he just bitch slapped them into walls whenever they tried to grab him during one of his raids.

The Raikage had needed the stress relief, especially after the Hokage had literally walked into his office and declared that, if he kept trying to push the bullshit with his ambassador, he would skip the declaration of war and just level the village there and then.

Considering he'd left every shinobi between the Raikage Tower and the front gates tied in various knots or reduced to groaning heaps, the younger man had conceded, and decided that there would be no more attempts by Kumogakure to get their hands on rare bloodlines.

But that was entirely unknown to the two Ki-users, who now approached the village of Sunagakure on foot, though without actually touching the ground; they made the walking movements, but their feet remained about a centimetre off the sand. Precision training, with the upside of not getting sand in their leather shoes.

Naruto was dressed in much the same fashion as his teacher, except that he also wore a sash / scarf made from the blankets which Piccolo had found him in. It was a reminder for him, and a treasured gift from the man who was raising him – even if the slug-man had tried to brush it off, grumbling about practicing his needle skills.

A pair of shinobi met the two at the front gates, looking strangely at the small blond child and the massive green man. They were about to get them to state their business, when the tall one butted in. "Hey, have you two see a kid around here that has a giant monster in their stomach?"

The two men stared at him incredulously, a shiver running up both their spines at the same time. Then, the child spoke up, pointing further inside the village. "He's over there, Uncle Piccolo."

"Right, good work Naruto. Go have fun, I'm gonna stock up on supplies."

"Got it!" The blond called, immediately disappearing in a burst of speed down the street that had the shinobi staring open mouthed after him.

"That was at least chunin speed…" One of them muttered. "But, that kid couldn't have been more than five!"

Shaking his head, the Suna-nin turned around, his partner also doing so in order to question the older member of the duo…only to find catch a glimpse of his white cloak turning a corner down the street, the slug-man having walked away while they were gawking.

"OI! Get back here!"

As Piccolo led Suna's shinobi forces on a wild goose chase, Naruto followed his developing ability to sense energy towards the somewhat familiar sensation which the Fox assured him was the other kid like him.

He hadn't interacted much with other kids his age; he and Uncle Piccolo had lived on top of a really tall mountain (which had been taller before they started living there), and they hadn't had many visitors. A couple of people had come by early on, he vaguely remembered, but after Uncle Piccolo had thrown them off again, they stopped coming back.

It wasn't that his uncle was bad company; far from it, his uncle was _awesome_. He was the strongest person in the world, even if he wasn't human, and he said that he was going to teach him to be just as strong as he was one day! Plus, he was a surprisingly good cook for someone who could subsist entirely on water.

His ramen, for example, was simply _godlike_ – no matter what the man himself said, Naruto was sure that no greater food existed in this universe or any other.

He'd learned to read, write and speak from Piccolo, as well as how to fly, how to fight, and how to shoot frickin' laser beams from his hands. He'd figured out how to do it from his mouth as well, but it had a really funny taste, so he didn't do that often.

And, of course, he'd learned the most important lesson – how to…

"LOOK OUT!"

In an instinct born from countless hours, thrown objects, and painful impacts, the blond threw himself into a forward roll at a speed most Kages would have been envious of. As he did so, a man who was probably one of those shinobi that had always come to fight with them when they went into town from the mountain went flying over Naruto's head like a dart, screaming as he went.

Coming up from his roll, Naruto found that the thrower had been the person he was looking for. A boy, certainly no older than Naruto himself and actually somewhat shorter, was staring after the shinobi with a terrified look, the sand around his feet churning and twisting.

"That…was…" Naruto began, and the boy seemed to pull into himself as if expecting some kind of blow. "AWESOME!"

It was apparent, though, that he hadn't expected Naruto Uzumaki.

"You threw that guy, right?" The blond asked excitedly, the redheaded child nodding on autopilot. "That's so cool! I can only fire laser beams, my uncle taught me that, and it's really awesome but being able to control sand's incredible too!"

Finally taking a breath, Naruto ran up to the boy, who looked utterly bewildered, and held out his hand. "Hey, my name's Naruto Uzumaki!"

The smaller boy looked at the hand for a moment as if he'd never seen one before, then extended a shaking arm of his own to grip it. "S…Sabaku no Gaara."

"Good to meet you Gaara!" Naruto grinned, shaking the hand. "Let's be friends!"

The child's head snapped up. "…Friends?"

The blond's smile widened, his head nodding frantically. "Yup! You'll be my first friend apart from Uncle Piccolo! So, do you wanna go play?"

Gaara stared at the other boy for a long moment, before a blinding smile began to spread across his features, tears pooling in his eyes. "Yes…yes, I'd love to."

"In that case…" Naruto kept his grip on the boy's hand, and the other child yelped slightly as they rose into the air. "Let's go find Uncle Piccolo! He knows all the best games to play!"

And as the duo flew above Suna, the little redhead looked down on the place and managed to smile at the sight of it for the first time.

He'd made an amazing new friend…and he had a feeling things were going to get better now.

Neither boy noticed the nonverbal conversation going on as they talked – namely, the Kyuubi bitchslapping his 'little brother' all over the astral plane, until the sand around Gaara's feet tried to bury itself underground rather than threaten the more powerful Biju's container.

The Kyuubi certainly wasn't about to let any harm come to his container if he could help it – _especially_ not after the green demon had somehow let _another_ demon into the seal. An older one, yes – but it had kicked his ass up and down the mindscape, not leaving until the Kyuubi had come to accept the ultimatum.

Either cough up the chakra and healing ability, or start finding a new title – 'cause he sure as hell wouldn't have nine tails when the demon was through with him.

After bearing witness, through his link with Naruto, to the literally planet-busting power that the green demon threw about like a party favour, he'd decided that discretion was the better part of valour.

Immortality didn't mean jack if the planet you were meant to reappear on wasn't there to begin with.

When the two boys touched back down, Naruto immediately ran to the large figure in white and purple standing a short ways away, holding an absolutely massive sack over one shoulder. "Uncle Piccolo! Uncle Piccolo! I made a friend!"

The tall man turned around with a grunt, mussing the blond's hair, and Gaara's eyes widened. His skin was green, his features were odd, and his hands were clawed...

Was this guy a monster like him?

The Namekian's eyes shifted to the small, red-haired child with dark rings around emerald eyes who Naruto had brought along. _Yep – this is the kid alright._

Humming, Piccolo started looking back and forth between the child and the crumpled pile of robes lying halfway up the street. "Hey, kid," he began, getting the boy's attention instantly. He jerked a thumb up the street. "That a relative of yours?"

Gaara blinked, then cast his gaze in the direction the thumb indicated...only for his jaw to drop when he saw the familiar robes of the Kazekage, smouldering slightly where they were arrayed around the obviously unconscious form of his father, the Fourth Kazekage.

"Y...yes..." He managed to murmur, still trying to process the sight of his father – the most powerful man he knew – lying laid out in the street like a common drunk.

Piccolo just grunted again. "That a problem?"

Idly, Gaara considered the quality of his life so far, and the fact that he hadn't exchanged more than twenty words with his father in five years of near-isolation. "...No. Not really." He denied.

Yet another grunt. "Good. So, kid, what's your name?"

Grinning, Naruto ran back over to Gaara from where he'd wrapped himself around Piccolo's shin. The Namekian might not have been one for physical affection, but for some reason Naruto himself _was_ , and he wouldn't begrudge the child the little things. "His name's Sabaku no Gaara, Uncle Piccolo – he can do this really cool thing with sand, too!"

"Hm." Was Piccolo's only response – he was connecting the dots between the ability to manipulate sand, and the fact that the older red-head had been manipulating gold dust.

All of which he had now stolen and placed in the massive sack over his shoulder.

"Well, we can talk more about that later. For now, we should probably be going-"

"Gaara!"/"Gaara!"

All three blinked as they turned, finding two figures running up the street towards them in the opposite direction from where the Kazekage was laid out. One was female, with sandy hair done in four short ponytails and carrying two fans at her waist; the other was probably male, despite the strange markings on their face, and was huffing as they ran – probably a combination of the large package on their back and their black clothing in a desert.

"Temari? Kankuro?" The little redhead asked tentatively, shying away from the two seemingly on instinct.

Naruto glanced at the boy. "Hey, are these friends of yours Gaara?"

As the two children stopped a couple of metres away from the little group, panting and resting their hands on their knees, the boy shook his head. "My brother and sister. We...don't see each other very often..."

Naruto frowned. "Well that's no good." A grin started spreading across the blond's face, and he turned to look up at the man...slug-demon...alien...who had raised him. "Hey, Uncle Piccolo? Can we take them with us too?"

 _Somehow, I'm not surprised._ Piccolo thought to himself. Out loud, he said, "Well, Naruto, that depends on whether or not they want to come. Remember what I've told you-"

"'It's not kidnapping if you have their consent,' yes I know Uncle Piccolo." Though just _why_ the Namekian had drilled that into his head was beyond him so far...

"Good." Piccolo nodded sharply, then turned his gaze on the two new arrivals. He gestured for them to approach. "Come on now, we aren't going to hurt you."

Still, Temari and Kankuro hesitated, shooting uneasy glances at the ground around their brother's feet – which, they now saw, was rather inactive. Especially when Gaara was standing in close proximity to other people.

"Are you worried about getting thrown?" Naruto asked suddenly, the latter two thirds of the Sand Siblings immediately looking to the blond. "You don't have to, you know. I mean, I've not been thrown – and I'm just his friend. No way would his brother and sister get thrown." He stated with all the assurety of youth.

In response to that, Temari and Kankuro looked to one another, before stepping forward slowly – and, when there was no reaction, continuing to do so, gaining speed until Temari reached her little brother and abruptly grabbed him in a hug.

"I'm sorry, Gaara..." She whispered to him. "But Dad told us to keep away from you, and we only got the chance to come looking when Baki left before he came back..."

In his sister's arms, the little redhead couldn't find it in himself to be angry at his father. Instead, he looked up at his siblings – one hugging him, the other now resting a hand on his shoulder and giving him a smirk. "Temari? Kankuro? Will you come with me?"

Both older children cocked their heads slightly. "You're leaving, Gaara?" When the younger sibling nodded, Temari asked, "Where?"

Squirming slightly so he could turn and face Piccolo, Gaara relayed the question to the Namekian. In response, the alien started ticking things off on his fingers. "Alright, let's see... There's one more place we want to go to find another kid like you and Naruto, then we've got to find somewhere big enough for a castle, preferably _not_ in the middle of nowhere since you guys need to eat, and after you're old enough we'll probably want to go and find other people to teach you."

 _'You really didn't think the whole "kidnapping a child and raising them" thing, did you? I mean, if it wasn't for how fast Naruto's grown up, he'd never have managed to learn as much as he has done with you teaching him.'_

The Namekian mimed coughing into his hand, but used the action and sound to cover his response. "Shut _up_ , Nell!"

* * *

 **Author's Note**

 **This was written quite a long time ago, after I first caught up with Dragonball Z abridged. I might continue it at some point in here, maybe even post it as a separate one-shot if it ever gets finished, since I kinda had fun doing it - and really, if you're going to choose someone to look after children with giant-monster-tendencies , rage-powers and a need for combat ability...Piccolo's near the top of a very short list.**


End file.
